Normally, a movie tie-in video game is not even worth the time it took to cobble it together. The games are usually so terrible that most people simply avoid them out of hand. X-Men Origins Wolverine for the XBOX 360 and PS3 is different from these games however. Raven Software managed to put together a pretty good game where you feel like your Wolverine, finally!
The graphics in Wolverine Origins is a pretty descent game but it has some problems. Unfortunately these problems are all most critical. What do I mean by this? Well, let's start with the good stuff first.
In most of the game the graphical prowess of Wolverine Origins is first rate. Stunning vistas, excellent models on Wolvie, and even some incredible gorey dismemberments that would make Epic proud. The problem with the graphics in general is that there are some real graphical bugs here. Boxes that have invisible perimeters, chopper pilots that bleed purple, terrible supporting cast models, and of course the occasional clipping and slowdown during cinematics. Which in 2009 seems a little unreal.
Perhaps the greatest and the worst thing about Wolverine however, is the gameplay. Wolverine allows you to do awesome combos and really cut guys to shreds. The game gives you some amazing powers and these increase in power as you level up and allocate points. There are some incredible action sequences here.
There is another part to the game. Its' all most as if your suffering through it to get to the fighting; the platforming. Not just platforming, but horrible platforming. You never feel LESS like Wolverine than when your doing your best Tomb Raider one impression. Jumping from box to box and rope to rope. In some cases the environment around you could be used to platform off of; but instead you are locked into this horrid path. In one case it looks like you could just lunge up to the helicopter like you have done MANY times before and you can't, you have to jump around and try and avoid it. There are certainly lots instances in the game that will make you play for hours on end. The game allows you to collect mutagens and skills both of which allow you to make your character stronger. Which is wonderful. Which just reconfirms on wonderful the fighting part of the game is; and how worthless the platforming part is.
There is plenty of fan service in Wolverine Origins. You can collect action figures to unlock challenges where you can earn new costumes for Wolverine. Any of these costumes can be equipped between saves. All you have to do is pop out of the game and pop back in. There are also some hidden gems in the game associated with achievements. All are great and certainly are obviously more geared toward what the game really intended to achieve.
Your feral senses which turn the whole screen trippy and shows you the path and some interactive objects. This does show interactive objects which can also be of some use, but this too is more a product of the flawed design rather than an innovative feature. The whole point of feral senses appears to be purely because some of the paths they want you to take through these environments were crazy even to them.
This is a tragedy of epic proportions considering the core game play of fighting and lunging and even most of the boss battles is absolutely perfect. Why Raven felt the NEED to have platforming and SO MUCH of it! It is beyond my understanding. It virtually ruined an all most great game. The quick time event with the stupid Sentinel really needs to some work. I really felt like I was banging my head against the wall.
While it is a better game than 99% of all other movie tie in games with the possible exception of Chronicles of Riddick. Wolverine Origins is certainly an incredible first step toward a better movie game. But it isn't any where near where it should be. While the game is probably worth a rental it is definitely not worth a purchase. While Wolverine definitely does what it sets out to do; make you feel like Wolverine. It's too bad the rest of the game was SO poorly designed. Unfortunately there are just too many good games out and coming out to waste your time or heaven forbid money to get Wolverine Origins.
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